Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 4 (FN Agency) Attempt at homogenisation by the ruling party at the centre is a worrying threat to the federal structure of India and this approach will sooner or later trigger a pushback against such efforts, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan said at the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters here on Saturday. The minister was debating the subject of Reimagining India — Federalism with Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram. Pointing out the disparity in tax allocation by the central government, as northern states get greater share due to factors like high population, Thiagarajan said southern states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala had achieved developmental targets set by the national governments in areas of population control, but now effectively penalised for that due to the proportional population figures leaves them at a disadvantage. Both Tharoor and the Thiagarajan raised concerns about the current BJP leadership to push Hindi as the main language.
Answering Tharoor’s question if Tamil Nadu was going overboard with opposition of Hindi like their stance on the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the finance minister said their stance against Hindi imposition was not based on blind opposition. “What it effectively says is that English cannot be taught even as a second language in the Hindi speaking states. So therefore, what they are really saying is the Hindi heartland will have one language formula and other states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra have a three language formula: one for ourselves, English to speak to the rest of the world and Hindi to speak to those people who cannot learn English.”
He said such top down approach will not survive for long and even BJP state governments have started asking questions about some of central government’s policies. They are now asking why some developmental programme where the funds come from the states but are run as New Delhi’s projects, he said. Thiagarajan said even the very definition of a national parties have to be re-evaluated as no party will have the same policies in every state of India. Tharoor said the reported discussion by BJP to increase the number of MPs will downgrade further quality of debates in the Parliament as already there is hardly any time for a meaningful discussion. The Congress MP also had a few words of criticism at the budget presented by the left government in Kerala, saying it had no imaginative move to raise revenue and is continuing to live on borrowed money.